FATED (11 page)

Sixteen

As the door closed be
hind me I wanted to slide down it and sit on my arse, such was the feeling of utter physical and mental exhaustion that overwhelmed me. Standing not 5ft away from me was my bestie, holding two mugs of hot steaming tea.

‘I think this is probably just what the doctor ordered,’ she said with a grin.

‘Yeah,’ I said, taking my I love New York mug from her. ‘I need to call Aunty Jean.’ I left that floating in the air.

‘Hmmm ... OK, you probably do. But first you need to sit down with me and give me all the details.’

I followed her down the step to our sitting area and sat down with a thump, curling my legs up underneath me. I placed two hands on my cup of tea, relishing the warmth that ran through me. Slowly my gaze lifted to her beautiful blue, enquiring eyes.

‘So at least we know it hasn’t grown over?’ she laughed.

‘What?’

‘Your lady garden.’

It was all too much; I snorted when breathing in and spat out some of the hot tea I was in the act of trying to swallow.

‘My lady garden?’ I stared at her now, as she burst out in a giggling fit.

‘Well you know, gorgeous girl, it hasn’t been used in that long... I was seriously beginning to wonder if having had someone play with their balls in it once before, you had now decided it was a keep off the grass, sort of lady garden?’

I was sitting listening to all her euphemisms and shaking my head.

‘How do you know if I used it at all, Bella?’

She moved closer to me, on the settee. ‘Come on, spill.’

I proceeded to tell her. I told her the way Alex made me feel. I described the look in his eyes, as he had lifted me onto his lap, and the huge erection, which I had ground myself onto.

‘Well that certainly has me hot under the collar,’ she started to fan herself with her hand. ‘That explains the position you were both in when I opened the door. He had rolled you off and away, to protect you.’

‘What am I going to do, Bella; he has agreed to give me until Monday night to think.’

‘You see, Frankie, that’s where you and I differ. I don’t really understand what it is you need to think about? I know he is part of JJ’s history...’ I could feel her searching for the right words to use. ‘The bloke had an error of judgement, call it an accident, but he didn’t deliberately cause JJ to die.’ The atmosphere in the room sank down a level and she reached over to hug me to her, ‘I am sure he lives with this every day of his life, his other men wouldn’t want to be around him if they felt he was really to blame, would they? And yet we met Brent today.’ She picked up my hand from my lap and started worrying with it. She was also starting to very subtly shake her head.

‘You have felt a connection to him, for like forever! I really believe you need to see what happens next and take a leap of faith. I have never had a guy look at me the way he looks at you, that’s for sure... Right OK lecture over, drink your tea up and go and call Aunty Jean.’

‘Yes, Sir.’ I gave her a mock salute in a silent piss take. She made it all sound so easy.

After I took my now empty mug to the kitchen, I padded my way through to my bedroom, picking up the telephone en-route and I threw myself down onto the comfortable bed. Trying to work out exactly what it was I needed to say or ask Aunty Jean. But I knew I needed to do it quickly as it was coming up for 6pm here. Adding 5 hours on, she would be getting ready for bed. I closed my eyes and listened to the dialling tone stretching across the thousands of miles between us. 

‘Hello,’ instantly I relaxed into her comforting voice.

‘Hi, Aunty,’

‘Oh, Frankie, how lovely to hear your voice, I was just making a drink and going off to bed. Are you OK darling?’ And there it was the ball park question.

‘I need to talk to you about something, but I can call back in the morning if you would prefer,’ almost grasping the opportunity to cut and run.

‘No dear, talk now. I am not often here in the mornings, Frankie.’ Her voice stated.

‘I met my boss today, Alex Blackmore. It turns out he is...’ I stopped, unable to actually annunciate the words.

‘I know who he is, Frankie.’

Say what? Did she just say she knows?

‘Sorry, Aunty, I don’t think I quite caught what you just said. Could you repeat it please?’

‘You heard correctly darling. Your uncle and I have been in contact with him a few times now,’ she stopped speaking suddenly. ‘Frankie?’

‘I don’t know what to say, did you know I had taken this job from him?’ My voice rose.

‘I did love; he had asked us our opinion, on whether he should offer you the job in the first place.’

‘Did he now? But no one thought, that just maybe, I should be included in this little conversation?’ I hit back.

‘Now stop it, Frankie, it wasn’t like that, your uncle and I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity for you. You would get to be back with Bella. We knew how much you missed her. The job would be well paid and we knew he would look after you. If he had been truthful with you, I doubt very much you would have even considered taking the job. You need to move on with your life, JJ would want you to move on....’ Just when I thought she had finished she added, ‘Alex has always looked out for you dear, I feel he thinks he has some connection to you, and I certainly know you have a connection to him. I watched you at Coronado together. Every time we mentioned his name afterwards you would fight with feelings of disgust and yet at the same time, I could see you had other feelings for him too. Your face has always given you away.’

The silence was screamingly loud.

‘I have feelings for him, Aunty Jean; I’m just not sure what those feelings are. It’s why I phoned you today.’

‘Life is short my love, if we remembered all the time that we could lose someone at any moment, we would love more strongly and without inhibition, without fear of the what ifs. Not because there is nothing to lose, but because everything can always be lost at any time.’ 

I had tears rolling silently down my cheeks, one chasing the other.

‘Please, Frankie, you need to forgive him, and you need to forgive yourself. I am going to bed now my darling. Please phone me soon, I do so love to hear your voice.’

‘Night, night. I love you.’

‘We love you too; don’t let the bed bugs bite.’ I felt a smile tugging at the corners of my lips, hearing the words she always said when we were kids.

I should shower, but the bed felt too comfortable. I began to fall asleep, utter over thinking causing my fatigue.

Seventeen

ALEX

I leaned on the
inside of my penthouse door, for what seemed like forever. I hated walking away from her, even though it was not my fucking choice. This was, it seemed, the very reason for my anger over this fucked up situation. This wasn’t my choice. I slammed my hand back smacking the hard wood frame.

Ever since I had first been sent away from my family to England, even as an eleven-year-old, I had vowed to always be in control of everyone and everything I did, from that point on.

Yeah that fucking prick had to send me away. He knew after years of abuse at his hands, the tide was turning, when I had squared up to him after nearly reaching his height, and just finally having had enough of his crap. I squeezed my eyes closed to expel him from my mind, he had no right there, and I never allowed him to stay.

Slowly I slid down the door onto my ass, collecting my controller for the apartment on the way down from the hallway table. I could feel myself taking a few deep inhalations in my struggle not to reopen this fucking piece of wood and charge over to her and fuck her senseless. Pressing the buttons on the remote, I made the blinds come down that were in-between the layers of glass. I didn’t want to see the fucking city lights tonight. What I really needed was her pressed up against the cold glass, butt naked, with the cold of the glass making her nipples so hard they ached for me to warm them with my hot, wet tongue.

I am a fucking pussy whipped prick.

I forcibly leaned my head forward onto my knees and dragged my hands through my hair in exasperation.

‘Fuck you, Nathan!’ His fucking timing stank; she wasn’t supposed to know about me yet. Not with the shit hitting the fan back at the house, with Scott. But even in my fit of anger, I had to relent and acknowledge that I was relieved she knew. She hadn’t taken it too badly and that was a fucking relief. I was hopeful I could keep her away from the other crap going on in my life. After all I was the master of control, except of course when my idiotic little brother tried to one up me.

With that thought I threw the remote across the hallway; it smashed as it skidded across the floor, spewing its guts over the grey marble. The very moment it stopped sliding and stilled was the moment the knock on the door came.

‘Alex,’ it was Edwards, not the voice I wanted to hear.

I stood suddenly grasping the handle and swung open the door. ‘YES,’ I definitely sounded more irate than I intended and I forced myself to quickly control my temper. Edwards remained resolute at my bark and stood firm, the only tell was the raising slightly of a questioning eyebrow.

‘I just wanted to let you know that Nathan is now tucked up in bed, sleeping off his drink. Luckily, I had help undressing him, otherwise I would have just left him in the recovery position and let him sleep it off, uncomfortable or not. Anyway just wanted to let you know, and see if it’s OK to go off duty now?’

‘Bella helped?’

‘She did.’

‘OK... one thing, on your way out can you get George up with a new remote for the apartment, please. I dropped this one.’

‘Of course, Alex. No problem.’ I am sure I caught sight of a smirk, but let it go.

‘Night.’

I decided to take myself off to the gym inside the apartment.  If I couldn’t fuck her out of my system, I would run and pound her out. I changed into a pair of black running shorts, and dropped my clothes on the floor in my haste, with them I dropped the dark blue lacy thong I had acquired earlier. I resisted the fucking ridiculous urge to pick it up and inhale her scent again. That would have to wait until later, when I was sure I would need to wank at least once in order to get any fucking sleep at all.  I did however relent and tuck them into the elasticated waist of my shorts. I couldn’t leave them behind; they were all I had of her.

Turning on the wall mounted TV, and placing the headphones on my head, I tried to lose myself into the news that was on and I started up the running machine. Listening to the days latest and trying unsuccessfully to absorb what was happening as I felt my feet pounding ever quicker on the mechanical track. It didn’t matter how fucking steep I made it, or how fucking fast I set it. Apart from my body screaming at me and the whole of my upper torso being covered in sweat, it was doing nothing to erase my goddamn thoughts of her. Finally with what sounded like an animalistic roar I punched the stop button and leant on the handle bar, gasping for air. Stepping off the machine, legs shaking, I downed one bottle of water and tipped another over my head, I flicked the water off my face with a shake of my head. I pushed my messy hair up and out of my eyes.

I started to strap up my hands ready to use the punch bag.

Once ready I began to obliterate the heavy leather bag in front of my face, with a fast almost torturous rhythm. I needed to lose the mental picture of Frankie coming undone on my lap. My hard on throbbed in my shorts; I had been hard continuously since the helicopter ride and was going to need to fucking relieve it soon. The pain in my knuckles and the sudden onset of music around the apartment brought me to once more; I looked up in time to see George lifting up one arm in a gesture of goodbye from the other side of the glass wall that made up the gym. I was physically shattered and decided to call it a night.

Undoing the glass door, I concentrated more on the music that was now playing, it was an old song, but so damned appropriate. So appropriate I decided to text it to Frankie.

Picking up my phone from the bedroom floor, I sent her the text. Then I placed the phone down on my bedside table.

Goddamn what the hell? I’m a pussy whipped prick. There was seriously no doubt.

I made my way into my shower, stepping out of my running shorts as I went. Cock in one hand and her thong in the other. I allowed myself to take one sniff of her arousing scent and then carefully placed them on the hook that would normally hold a towel by the shower door. The water was warm as I stood underneath the strongest part of the spray, and I began to roughly soap up my body. Wincing occasionally as my hands ran over some of the bruising I had taken during today’s match. I used the soap to briskly move my hand up and down my throbbing cock, while envisaging the picture of her coming undone on my lap. I jerked suddenly and all too quickly, as I knew I would, I came all over the tiles in the shower cubicle.

‘Yes,’ I expelled from between gritted teeth.

Leaning forward I turned the water to freezing and stood head bowed, leaning on my forearms, the water hitting the base of my neck and in between my shoulder blades. For the first time in what seemed like days my cock went semi flaccid, and semi, I realised, was probably all the relief I was going to get. At least, for the next couple of fucking long days.